Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/west-point-professor-seeks-paths-to-a-soldiers-heart Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Professor Elizabeth Samet's upper level poetry seminar unearths the creative side of soldiers-in-training. Jeffrey Brown looks at Samet's use of poetry and her new book entitled "Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point." Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, a story of soldiers and sonnets at West Point. Jeffrey Brown has the latest in our ongoing poetry series. JEFFREY BROWN: At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, classes begin with a salute.ELIZABETH SAMET, Author, "Soldier's Heart": I know Mr. Cooke [ph] and Ms. Lizari [ph] did the Rich and Dunne connection [ph]. JEFFREY BROWN: But apart from that and the uniforms, Professor Elizabeth Samet's upper-level poetry seminar would fit in at any university filled with very bright young men and women. ELIZABETH SAMET: And I think Stevens is really getting at similar themes… JEFFREY BROWN: The discussion ranged widely, from Wallace Stevens' poem "The Snow Man"… ELIZABETH SAMET: To put "nothing that is not there" into the mix, he's not talking directly about the nature scene. JEFFREY BROWN: … to the eighth-century Chinese poet Du Fu. ELIZABETH SAMET: … 98 in the Chinese poetry. WEST POINT CADET: Snow scurries in the coiling wind. The wine glass is spilled. The bottle is empty. The fire has gone out on the stove. JEFFREY BROWN: Cadets were unafraid to question the professor's thesis. WEST POINT CADET: I'm just having a hard time understanding any notion of poetry devoid of any emotion. It doesn't strike me as, I mean, maybe there's a spectrum, where, I mean, certainly some poetry is more divested than others, but could you elaborate on that?